will be, generally, found in exact proportion to his knowledge of the
Ilissus, Hebrus, Orontes, &c.; inasmuch as modern travels and voyages are
more entertaining and fascinating than Cellarius; or Robinson Crusoe,
Dampier, and Captain Cook, than the Periegesis. Compare the _lads_
themselves from Eton and Harrow, &c. with the alumni of the New-Broom
Institution, and not the lists of school-lessons; and be that comparison
the criterion.--ED.]
August 4, 1833.
SCOTT AND COLERIDGE.
Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious, opposites in
this;--that every old ruin, hill, river, or tree called up in his mind a
host of historical or biographical associations,--just as a bright pan of
brass, when beaten, is said to attract the swarming bees;--whereas, for
myself, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson, I believe I should walk over the plain
of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of
similar features. Yet I receive as much pleasure in reading the account of
the battle, in Herodotus, as any one can. Charles Lamb wrote an essay [1]
on a man who lived in past time:--I thought of adding another to it on one
who lived not in time at all, past, present, or future,--but beside or
collaterally.
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